An alumna of Clarion West Writer’s Workshop for science fiction and fantasy, I’ve written for markets like The New York Times and Time Out New York. Currently, I write about sci-fi for Blastr. I also edit the humor competition for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and here at Forbes.

Sexual Harassment in Online Videogames: How to Fix the Problem

Feminist blogger Anita Sarkeesian said, “Many contemporary online multiplayer games now include voice and text chat integration which is meant to provide a richer shared social gaming experience. Unfortunately, in some of these spaces when a player is identified as female (or LGBT) they are viciously attacked and verbally abused.”

I’ve covered this harassment in the first part of my article, here (and more about Sarkeesian, here). Although men receive abusive comments from fellow gamers, it’s much worse for women.

Grace, an editor of the website Fat, Ugly, or Slutty, said, “When it’s discovered that [a player is] a woman, the abuse changes. It’ll become more concentrated from a lot of players at once or the content changes: It becomes a lot more sexualized or becomes violent.”

These threats don’t just come from obnoxious teens: they come from grown men, as attested to voice recordings of players found on NotintheKitchenAnymore.

Among many others, James Bosier is motivated to see harassment end. A father of a young girl, he said, “I’m afraid of what her first interaction with somebody online will be. It’s a shame this is an even an issue. I can’t imagine than women couldn’t play golf because they’re sexually harassed by everybody playing.”

Although many believe this harassment comes from a vocal minority, it’s time for both players and games companies to actively stamp it out. Here’s how:

Suggestions for players

Tell the harassers to stop.

Jennifer Bosier, the managing editor for VideoGameWriters, said, “If you have a problem with me because you disagree with me, great. If you have a problem with me because I’m female, find a new hobby.”

She suggests, “Just push back. A lot of the guys who will call you ‘Tits’ are a lot bark and no bite, and if you tell them, ‘Dude’ [spoken warningly], they’ll back down.

“I lashed out at a guy and he said, ‘I’m really sorry.’ I said, ‘No, this doesn’t cut it. Dude, this is not an okay behavior.’ And he totally backed down. After that, he was kinda resentful to me, but after a couple of weeks, he learned that…I’m actually pretty nice. After that, we became friends.

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I caught the first part of this and thought; Isn’t it faintly amusing how many men turn up in the comments section to argue that any accusation of sexism in gaming is nonsense…by attacking the writer of the article by implying that they don’t know what they are talking about because…they are female.

Sort of missing the point methinks.

For clarification I’m a guy – not some ‘axe-grinding, bra-burning feminist’. However, and this is the notable part, a couple of times I have been mistaken for a woman online. I’ve avoided serious abuse, thank god, but have noted that men have on occasion treated me differently when they thought they were talking to a woman.

Of course what I find abusive might differ from a real woman, as on the whole I took great delight in letting the guys continue to rattle on and make fools of themselves….

It tells me that male bloggers are not writing about the issue. And why would they? It is not something that they are going to be exposed to everyday if at all.

You also seem to be missing the point about being aggressive/offensive. Many of the comments being made by men on this issue are not discussions about if there is a problem, or if ‘feminist’ blogs/writers might be overstating the problem. They are just attacks on such bloggers because they are women, or excuses for behaviour that is inexcusable.

I’ve seem comments made about women on some message boards, to which both my reply and many of the other man who frequent those boards was that had you said that to a woman’s face you’d either have been arrested or beaten up.

Aggressively sexist, highly offensive and hurtful comments are directed towards women far too often on the net. Men can be on the receiving end of offensive comments as well it is true, but these are not even close to what women have to put up with.

For example the Discovery Channel show Mythbusters has its own message board. Now for those who don’t know the show has five presenters, four men and one women (Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman, Tory Belleci, Grant Imahara and Kari Byron). Three of them (Adam, Grant and Kari) used to post on the message boards after episodes were aired. Now all three received abuse from ‘fans’, and eventually decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle and stopped visiting the site. However while the guys just had to put up with being called stupid. Kari had to put up with a wave of sexual abuse, to the point that they had to make her name a trigger word because of the number of offensive posts being made. Even today someone will turn up and post offensive comments about her – and quite often judging her abilities purely on the fact that she is a women and attractive. She’s not the only one to suffer from this. A few years back she went on maternity leave, her place being filled by Jessi Combes. Again, she was singled out based on her looks and accused of being useless because she was a women…who was doing mechanical work (because no women could possibly be a competent mechanic…*rolls eyes*).

In the same period the closest the guys came to such abuse was concerns being raised over safety on the show (Usually aimed at Grant) and questions over the qualifications of the cast. (Again, usually aimed at Grant if only because no one seems above to recall if his degree is in electronic or mechanical engineering).

So yes, there IS a problem in the online world and women are certainly not being treated equally here. And no, this is not a case of women being too ‘sensitive’. Every women I’ve ever known can handle sexist jokes if they know they are meant to be jokes – indeed the worst such jokes I’ve heard over the years have come out of the mouths of women.

Now in defence of my gender most men I know would not accept aggressive or offensive behaviour towards women online – indeed the strongest opponents of such behaviour I’ve run across online have all been men. (Several of whom are quite happy to make the odd joke about their wife…although not if they are in the same room). The rest however either seem to think this ‘overblown’, not a problem or just women moaning.

Well, it tells me that the author is extremely biased and set on her views and doesn’t even seem to want to consider looking at the “issue” from another perspective or trying to analyze it more deeply than what you might see on the surface.

It also tells me that she thinks a few blogs (all of which specifically identify with feminism in one way or another, but that aside) are credible sources, or that they have stumbled upon some huge problem that nobody else has recognized or commented upon yet.

And I can assure you, the reactions and comments in regards to this are not “because they are women”, but because of what they are saying. See also the comments of when Erik Kain on this very site tackled the Anita Sarkeesian thing: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/07/13/on-anita-sarkeesian-sexism-in-video-games-and-why-we-need-to-have-the-conversation-even-if-it-feeds-the-trolls/ or Daniel Nye Griffiths with his several articles, and they’re even a lot more diplomatic and neutral about it and willing to give it a second thought. And they’re not the only ones (or men) writing about it, the folks over at Rock Paper Shotgun and other gaming websites seem to be constantly drumming on the “issue” too.

Regarding your example of “Mythbusters” (I haven’t really seen the show or know if what you are saying is true), but you are first saying that ALL of the show hosts were “getting abuse” from people and they ALL felt compelled to stop visiting or posting, yet you single out one of them and make it about being female?

It says that most bloggers of video games, a majority of which are male, don’t have to deal with this issue. So instead of trying to shut down female writers from voicing their mind on what’s wrong, you feel that just becuase it hasn’t been brought up yet before by a male means something?

I think the best advice on here though it to fight back. I’m so sick of people saying we need to stop bullies. Why? Because you can’t and never will. But you CAN learn to fight back.

The gays I know are alive NOT because they never faced a bully of a bigot, but because they rose up and fought back. They’re some of the strongest people I know because they said, at some point, “Ok, we’re playing that game? I’ll beat you.”

That is what it is all about. Getting you off your game. Ignore it and beat them. I keep reading about how guys just don’t get trash talked the same. My ass. Some of these effer’s have made it into an art form. It is amazing that that much vileness can be said in so few words. The reason guys who talk trash to girls say the things they do is because those things are extremely effective at getting girls off their game. The worst thing to do is show in any way it effects you. Then it is like a pack of piranha’s with blood in the water. Guys learn this lesson early in life.